


Decadence

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Series: Ruby Red Desire [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:39:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Decadence: n. a process, condition, or period of decline; deterioration, decay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decadence

She fits just right in my arms, as I’d always imagined. I look at her  
sleeping face and notice the traces of tears staining her soft white  
cheeks. Perfect symmetry. Her face was bruised with weeping our first  
time, and now, this, our last–?

Never the last. I can’t quite accept that in the morning, she will go to  
Mulder and say, “I love you,” and that I will lose the day. In the first  
light of dawn, the air is cold, reality is frozen, and I look down at her,  
remembering.

I took a wrong turn into her arms, literally. I was looking for Kimberly  
(ever notice how ten-minute breaks last forty?) when I stumbled upon Dana  
Scully, crying. Not loud, hysterical, girly sobs, just tears that dared  
defiantly fall from her crystal-blue eyes. She jumped up in horror when  
she noticed me.

“Sir! I-”

“Are you all right, Agent Scully?” I asked.

“I’m fine, sir,” she replied belligerently.

“Is it the cancer?”

“No, sir, I’m just-”

She’s so fierce; she hates being out of control. Then and now and always.

“Of course,” I replied mildly. “Scully?”

Her head snapped back, her eyes met mine with bright defiance. She was NOT  
going to look weak at that moment, no matter what-

“Yes, sir?”

“Would you, um, like to come over to dinner tonight? As a friend. To talk.  
Whatever.”

I thought, I expected, she’d tell me to go to hell. It’s just not her way  
to open up and talk. She was going to say no.

“All right,” she agreed softly. “Is seven-thirty okay?”

The sunrise is very slow today, and I think of last night with almost  
regret. But not really. She shifts a little in her sleep, a lonely sunbeam  
illuminating the pale curve of her waist, the sharp round curve of her  
hip.

That night, I hated how gaunt and empty she looked in my doorway. I  
thought about my deal with the devil and its lack of results.

“Hello,” I said slowly. “Make yourself comfortable. Dinner’s going to be  
ready soon. I hope you like Italian.”

She nodded, and rather listlessly (so I thought) sat down at the kitchen  
table.

“Do you have plans for this weekend?” I asked, desperately trying to make  
conversation.

“My mother wants to go to the theatre,” she replied. “I was thinking more  
along the lines of a weekend in bed.”

“I know the feeling,” I replied. “Long week. Would you like something to  
drink?”

My control was at its limits. I wanted to know why she had been crying in  
the hallway. I wanted to know how sick she really was, or if Mulder had  
upset her. If he had, I would shake him silly-

“Just water, thank you.”

She turns over and moans in her sleep, immodestly draped by the sheet.  
Botticelli would have adored Dana as a model. Trivial details are seared  
into my brain this last morning.

“This is delicious,” she told me over the pasta. “I wish I had a better  
appetite these days.”

“You’re welcome to take some home.”

“I might,” she replied. “Sir.”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to put me on medical leave?” she asked in a rush of  
panicked words.

“No,” I replied, looking at her carefully. “Is that why you thought I’d  
invited you over? Did you think I was going to–?”

She smiled, in relief, I think. “Yes. I thought maybe my behavior in the  
hallway was the final straw and-”

“No, no,” I said. “Scully, I admit that I’m concerned, but I wouldn’t put  
you on leave. No, you can work until you drop dead at the desk-”

She recognized my feeble attempt at humor, and tried to smile.

“Any day now,” she murmured. “You want to know why I was crying.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t want to pry.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said. “Mulder and I had a fight. He said that I’m not  
being honest with him, that I’m not being honest with myself. I’m not  
living up to his standards- he didn’t say that. I just-”

If Mulder had been within ten miles of me, I would have torn his punk ass  
limb from limb, lit him on fire, and toasted marshmallows for Scully on  
his remains. She kept talking, and I seethed in silence.

“I don’t want to be a burden for him. I just- oh. Sometimes I wonder if  
working too long with Mulder makes me crazy. He’s in denial. He’s so angry  
that I’d dare die on him and our precious quest that he makes every day  
more difficult to endure-”

The sun is rising over the city now, reflecting empty, lost things. Broken  
things. Every day starts like this, I think as I shift back and forth in  
time.

Her next words caught me by surprise.

“I really need someone to listen to me.”

I took her hand. “I’m listening.”

She smiled sadly. “Thank you, but-”

“My pleasure,” I replied. She looked at me quizzically over the table.  
God, she was so beautiful, even when she was that sick. There was a long  
silence.

“What are you thinking?” she asked suddenly.

“You’re beautiful,” I said, not thinking. “What are you thinking?”

“Will you dance with me?” she asked. “Please?”

I couldn’t deny her anything. I can’t deny her anything. I rose and led  
her into the living room. I’d turned on some light jazz before her  
arrival, and that’s what played while we danced.

She stretches, slowly waking up, and a long yawning groan comes out of the  
round O of her mouth.

“Good morning,” I whisper. “How are you?”

“I don’t want to be alone,” she told me during our dance, just before she  
stood on tip-toe, and drew my mouth to hers for a kiss. For me, it was if  
all my prayers had been answered.

“Are you sure?” I murmured, savoring the feel of those delicate, perfect  
lips.

“Please,” she’d whispered. “I’m lonely-”

That was all I needed to hear. I’d save her, if only for that night. I’d  
do something. I kissed her again, stroking her hair. She shook her head,  
and broke the embrace. I looked at her, confused.

“Morning,” she mumbles, squinting at the sunlight. “I’m okay.”

Even fuzzy-eyed and bed-headed, she’s so beautiful.

“Please,” she whispered, the ghosts of the past overwhelming the present.  
“Don’t fight this.”

She’d pulled me into the bedroom, my bedroom, and took off her shirt. I  
looked at her, unable to believe that it was real. I stopped her,  
delicately cupped her face, looking at her with a question in my eyes. She  
nodded. I dropped my hand, and drew her to me. She pulled back again,  
undoing her bra and climbing onto the bed. I followed her, ridding myself  
of my shirt.

I nuzzled her breasts, traced paths down her stomach, enjoying each touch,  
each taste. She whimpered in response, her hands kneading my shoulders,  
moving in maddening ways. My hands fumbled, found zippers, buttons, eased  
off her pants. How could anyone resist this?

“Wait,” she murmured as my head moved lower. “Not like that. Please-”

Her delicate hands tried to move me upward.

“What?”

“Just make love to me. That’s what I want.”

I did what she wanted, pulling away briefly to remove the rest of my own  
clothing, then returning to her arms and the rest of that divine body,  
feeling the shift of her hips beneath me. Please, indeed. I moved my hand  
down her skin slowly, feeling that soft sensation of flesh which is  
somewhere between silk and suede and satin. I lost any hope of restraint  
when I realized she was wet, she was aroused, that she wanted this as  
much, maybe more than I did. I lost myself in her body, thinking with  
every thrust that she couldn’t be dying, she couldn’t die, that she felt  
so alive and real beneath me, keening with more and more force-

“OhmyGod,” she finally gasped. “OhGodyesyes-”

Roses, you know, are dying at their fullest bloom. She informed me of this  
while she was still dying, while her hands grasped desperately at my  
shoulders, her body writhing beneath my mouth. I think she understood that  
I loved her then. She wanted me to survive her death.

Such a curious history we’ve had. Sex and love and need and time that all  
seems to be borrowed, first because she was dying, and then because she  
didn’t trust me, and now–?

“I’d kill for a cup of coffee,” she tells me, pulling herself up from me  
and the bed.

“You know where it is,” I answer, watching her put on underwear and a  
sweatshirt, leaving her legs bare. Damn, Dana might not have long legs,  
but they’re sexy as hell.

She pads to the doorway and looks back at me. “Walter,” she says. I’m  
surprised- it’s been a year and I can count how many times she’s used my  
given name to address me.

“Yes?”

She looks troubled, but manages to get the sentiment out.

“Thank you so much. You’ve-” and she gestures at the air, trying to find  
the right words- “Kept me sane. I want you to know that I appreciate it.”

The sentiment hits me square in the gut, squeezing all of the air out of  
me. This is the end, it really is. God- and for whom? Mulder. I respect  
Mulder for a lot of things and for a lot of reasons, but I know he won’t  
appreciate what he has. He never has, why would he start now?

I nod, I think, just staring up at her. The doorway frames her perfectly,  
and the sunlight pours around her in a halo. Outlined, she looks  
otherworldly, unreal, ready to disappear. She’s hardly an angel of mercy,  
but still an angel as she walks out of the room into forever, into never,  
leaving me nothing but her silhouette burnt into my eyes by dawnlight.

END

 


End file.
